Three Stages Of The Movement

How the wider independence movement evolved its message

NON-COOPERATION

Launched as a response to greatly restricted rights and police brutality (including hundreds of deaths), Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement kicked off in 1920. It involved resisting the purchase of British goods, buying and using only natively produced crafts and goods and the picketing of establishments that sold alcohol. It was the first sign that a movement of national unity could be achieved, but it was ultimately suspended by Gandhi in 1922 after protestors became violent and police and were killed in Chauri Chaura; he feared that the philosophy of nonviolence was at risk of being lost.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

The next evolution of the non-violent protest philosophy was to actively oppose laws that were unjust to confront the British with the iniquity of their own rule. This started with the Salt March that lasted from 12 March to 6 April 1930. Gandhi and 80 of his supporters, joined by thousands more, walked ten miles a day for 24 days to Navsari (now Dandi) where Gandhi would evaporate sea water to make salt, breaking the government monopoly on salt production. The march continued along the coast with speeches and salt-making until Gandhi was arrested on 5 May 1930.

QUIT INDIA

The final push to force the end of British rule was the Quit India Movement, or August Movement, started at the All-india Congress Committee in Bombay, on 8 August 1942. This stage of the movement met unified resistance not just from the British, but also many business leaders who were supporting the war effort of the Allied powers. However, they did have the backing of the United States, with President Roosevelt pressuring Winston Churchill to heed the demands of the protestors. Suppression of the movement was swift and violent, with some leaders and protestors imprisoned until 1945, but the postwar conversation finally moved to peaceful exit for the British.